


James

by pipisafoat



Series: H. James Potter [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 18:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: H. James PotterThe Cupboard Under the Stairs4 Privet DriveLittle Whinging, Surrey





	James

He’s crying when he wakes up.

He’s no stranger to waking up with tears on his face from another war-given nightmare, but he doesn’t recognize the mattress below him or the ceiling above him or the sounds coming out of his own mouth. 

Come to think of it, he does recognize the ceiling, and he does recognize the sound. He’s hit with the urge to run into this room and pick up his crying son and comfort him, the urge to roll over and wake his wife and send her in to feed their hungry son, the urge to bury his head in his pillows and pretend he’s still asleep and let her do the comforting and the feeding all. But he knows, from the sound coming out of him and the mattress and the ceiling, that none of that will work. 

He’s not crying; he’s squalling. He’s not a father; he’s an infant. He’s not a hunsband; he’s ... a widower? An orphan? Both, and neither. 

He sobs for the loss of Lily, and the emotions course through him until he sleeps. 

———

He’s awoken by a scream, and a silent, wandless shield springs up over him as truly massive glass bottles hurtle towards his face. 

It’s only after a woman mutters, “Great, he’s just as freakish as his parents,” that he remembers he’s an infant now. He holds his tongue for years, long after most children speak, because he isn’t sure what words and phrases children use first. Petunia doesn’t sound upset any time she mentions him not speaking, so he just sticks with it, right until his first day of school. Petunia makes eye contact with him as she very pointed wishes only Dudley a happy first day of kindergarten, and some piece of self control he didn’t even know he was using just snaps. 

“Aunt Petunia?” he says in a soft but deadly voice perfected from years dealing with trainee Aurors. “Whatever kind of day you were silently wishing I’d have ... I hope that’s how all of your days are.”

He may not have been counting on going home to her a few hours later. His first first day of school had been Hogwarts, nine months of boarding school. Still, he pretends he meant (or, he pretends she meant) a pleasant day, and nobody bothers him too much about it. Five year old children apparently aren’t expected to realize they aren’t loved, liked, or even remotely tolerated. 

———

He’s six and a half when he asks to be called James. He uses Bartholomew Vernon Dursley as a reason why he thinks it might be okay, but he doesn’t count on them ending the conversation with a frying pan to the back of his head. 

———

James manages to lie low as Harry until he’s almost eleven (or almost 38, depending on who’s counting) and his first Hogwarts letter arrives. He recognizes the letter, stuffs it instantly into his baggy clothing where his ‘family’ won’t see it, and delivers the rest of the mail to Vernon with no more than the usual. “Your mail, Uncle Vernon.”

It’s nightfall before he can look at his letter, but he’s not worried. His wandless skills have only improved with a decade of practice. In fact, he’d say that living with the Dursleys has been better for his magical abilities than years of war had. He’s more creative now - and coming from a Marauder, that means something. He can’t just block the flying eggs, because the Dursleys get mad. Instead, he lets them fall just slightly left of him though they were aimed at his face, and he lets them fall onto a shield instead of the floor to make cleanup easier. 

So it’s nightfall, and his letter (while addressed to Harry James Potter) contains nothing that a Muggle-raised child would have in theirs. (He and Lily compared letters while she was pregnant, and more than once. Pregnant Lily was a little bit weird.) He sighs and sneaks silently into the kitchen for a scrap of paper and a pen. 

_Professor Dumbledore,_

_My relatives are unable to take me shopping but have agreed to deliver me to The Leaky Cauldron on August 30 if a school representative can meet us there and help me shop._

_Sincerely,_

_H. James Potter_

———

He finds himself seething in his room over the Leaky. Part of it is ... okay, no, all of it is weird to be angry about. Dumbledore sent Hagrid, the worst possible person to be introducing anyone to the magical world, but it means that any of his little slipups were likely unnoticed by the half giant. James is upset about Hagrid being sent to take care of his son, who is apparently some sort of hero and also himself, not his son. 

Still, he feels somehow validated or vindicated by seething, so seethe he does. Tomorrow, he’ll eat some sweets and get items not on the school list, and the next day he’ll head back to Hogwarts. That is, for the first time. Oh, bollocks. 

———

“Potter, Harry James!”

He smiles a bit at the tacit acknowledgment that he goes by James even as he marches up to the Sorting Hat and drops it onto ... well, okay, over his head. He’s so small from being eleven years old (and starved most of those years) that the damn thing nearly touches his shoulders. 

“Oh,” the Hat says, sounding rather shocked. 

“Right?” James asks it, delighted that someone can finally know the bafflingly bizarre truth about his life. “Hello again.”

“Hello to you, too.” The Hat sounds even more shocked at this display of basic manners, though he suspects most students are too surprised at a talking, mind-reading hat to be courteous. “So. Same place?”

“You’re not worried about me being a fully trained Auror?”

The Hat somehow mentally shrugs at this. “My business is to sort whoever comes under me, that’s all.”

“I see. Then give me a bit of a challenge this time around.”

He’s expecting Ravenclaw, because he meant an academic challenge. Instead, the Hat shouts, “SLYTHERIN!”

And James laughs so hard he falls over and breaks the three-legged stool on which he’d been sitting.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the 19364373937352829464 times that someone says or implies Harry is his father reborn


End file.
